


Strange Marriage

by EssayOfThoughts



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Crack, F/M, Mention of Recreational Drugs, Recreational Drug Use, Slice of Life, crackship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2017-07-31
Packaged: 2018-12-09 11:45:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11668479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts
Summary: Rita and Xenophilius’ marriage is... complicated. It was for convenience more than anything and while they love their daughter they’re more or less ambivalent about each other. Rita has a slew of lovers, Xeno shows more affection to his letter-writing friends than to his wife, and both of them only try to agree on things if it’s for Selene’s sake.They don’t argue. If they disagree on something Rita refuses to spellcheck her articles or Xeno starts making some of his very odd hallucinogens.





	Strange Marriage

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TobermorianSass](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TobermorianSass/gifts).



> Written for my dear friend Jojo. I hope you enjoy it my dear.

 

 **i.**  
They get married because Rita thinks it’s a good idea. Xeno has the press and enough contacts to make a paper, Rita has the bombast to make it work.

Half of their wedding consists of conjured things; the most they shell out for is food.

When they go to bed, falling asleep back to back, they both wonder if this was the right choice.

 

* * *

 

 **ii.**  
They’re married for five years before they have a child. Rita wants to call her Celeste, Xeno wants to call her Luna. The girl herself insists on “Celuna” once she’s old enough to voice an opinion, and her parents settle on Selene.

Xeno does most of the parenting. Rita  _could,_  but after he accused her of being a hack addicted to her Quick Quotes Quill she’s been working twice as hard without it.

So Xeno parents Selene and instils in her a deep love of the natural world, magical, mundane, and completely imaginary.

 

* * *

 

 **iii.**  
Selene is eight years old when Rita first takes her along to work. To Selene, Xeno is always “Dad”, but Rita is always Rita. She doesn’t mind this: at the local wixen primary school in Ottery St. Catchpole she’s Cool - none of the other kids get to call their parents by their names.

Rita takes her along to interview Celestina Warbeck (“She’s why I wanted to call you Celeste.”), to interview Porpentina Scamander (“Her husband wrote your favourite book, she’s quite brilliant in her own right.”), into the Ministry and to Hogwarts, and even, once, to the ICW (“Pomous old fools every one of them, except for Umbridge who’s a-” Selene remembers her father hitting Rita with a silent  _Silencio)._

So, by the time Selene is eleven years old she is very well read and very well travelled and utterly unafraid of anything.

 

* * *

 

 **iv.**  
Rita and Xenophilius’ marriage is... complicated. It was for convenience more than anything and while they love their daughter they’re more or less ambivalent about each other. Rita has a slew of lovers, Xeno shows more affection to his letter-writing friends than to his wife, and both of them only try to agree on things if it’s for Selene’s sake.

They don’t  _argue._  If they disagree on something Rita refuses to spellcheck her articles or Xeno starts making some of his very odd hallucinogens.

“I know exactly what they all  _do,”_  he confides in Selene. “I experimented a lot at school - me and old Squirrel. Did you know he became a professor?” He stirs the potion he’s making, something glowing in shimmering rainbow colours, and starts spooning it into the long thin moulds he made from a glass stirring rod earlier. “Want to try some?”

 

* * *

 

 **v.**  
Largely Selene takes care of herself. She can cook about as reliably as her parents can and knows what herbs to brew to make a simple potions-tea for a headache, and what to brew to make GloStick and a number of other hallucinogens and magical drugs. By the time she’s ten she’s slipping articles into her father’s inbox, both as Selene Skeeter and under a variety of  _nomme de plumes_  (Luna Lovegood is a favourite, but sometimes Celeste Scarlette or Bedivere de Pompadour make an appearance. Once she almost slips one through by pretending to be one of Xenophilius’ letter-writing friends).

“She gets it from you,” Xeno accuses Rita one evening, looking over the articles.

Rita peers over his shoulder, looking over the tops of her glasses. “The persistence? Definitely. The ideas? That’s all you, darling.”

 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> Magical Drugs ideas from thelethifoldwitch, [Here](http://thelethifoldwitch.tumblr.com/post/109822905220/just-as-there-is-in-the-muggle-world-there-are).
> 
> Please leave comments!


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